It is not unusual for serious fisherman to own more than a hundred fishing lures, many of which they routinely take on any given fishing trip. As used herein the term "fisherman" will be broadly used to refer to those persons who pursue fish with a rod, line and an artificial bait--commonly known as a lure or plug. The term "fisherman" will also be used without specific reference or limitation as to the gender of the individual person; but for convenience, the masculine pronoun will be universally used to refer to the person who is doing the fishing. If spread out on a large horizontal surface, these lures might be arranged into a variety of categories based on size, shape, color, type, style, number of depending hooks, type of ancillary devices that may be attached (i.e., spinners or anti-weed devices), manufacturer, etc. When concentrated into a relatively compact tackle box, any organizational concept that could be practiced on a large horizontal surface can be compromised--to the extent that it sometimes becomes difficult for a fisherman to locate exactly what lure he wants to use at a given time. When fishing in a tournament, when time is of the essence, any time that is wasted in searching in a tackle box for a particular lure is time that is not profitably spent in actually trying to catch fish.
In view of the fact that fishing with lures is an activity that had been around for so many years, it should not be surprising that there have been several suggestions for ways in which to manage (and store) a large quantity of lures. U.S. Pat. No. 2,927,395 to Bartlett entitled "Cylinder-Type Lure Holder" shows a hollow cylinder holder that has slots around its periphery for holding several lures. But while the Bartlett holder would seem to be quite suitable for holding spoons that have a single hook or a single treble hook, the holder does not look like it would be either as safe or as useful for holding lures that have two or three treble hooks. That is, any given one of the notches at the top of the cylinder can hold a single hook, but a single notch is not adapted for holding two hooks. Neither are two spaced notches at the top of a Bartlett holder adapted to hold the two treble hooks that are so common on modern lures
Another holder for multiple lures is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,822 to Christenberry entitled "Fishing Lure Holder." Like the Bartlett holder, the Christenberry holder appears to be suitable for capturing and holding as lure with a single hook, but it is not designed for--and does not appear to be useful in--capturing all of the hooks that depend from a two-hook or a three-hook lure. And any holder that leaves a lure's hooks free to catch a fisherman's fingers before the lure catches any fish is likely to be used on only a single fishing trip.
A completely different concept in lure holders is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,645 to Borawski entitled "Fishing Lure Holder." The Borawski holder shows a series of side-by-side tubes is designed to receive both the body and the hooks of a single lure. While there seem to be some advantages to a Borawski holder, including the ability to store lures more compactly than the previously mentioned holders, it also appears that the Borawski concept would pose a significant risk to a fisherman's fingers. This perceived risk exists because of the need to grasp and maneuver hooks that must be correctly aligned with an opening in an individual one of the small tubes when a lure is being stored. Also, the most natural way for a fisherman to handle a modern lure is to grab its body from the top, allowing the depending hooks to hang more or less vertically under lure's body. It would seem to be difficult to sell experienced fishermen anything that does not simplify the grabbing of a single lure's body without putting fingers at risk from nearby hooks. And the advantage of being able to carry more lures in a compact space cannot compensate for the extra time and attention that may be required in order to safely use a Borawski holder. So, it is believed that there still exists a need to be able to hole fishing lures of various sizes and shapes in such a way that they can be quickly stored and retrieved--in a manner that promotes safety because it promotes manual control of individual lures as well as the efficient collection of a plurality lures.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved way of organizing and storing fishing lures so that they can be quickly found and retrieved for use by a fisherman.
Another object is to provide a means for holding individual lures so that their depending hooks are not likely to become entangled with the hooks of adjacent lures.
A further object is to support lures in such a way that their hooks will tend to air-dry quickly after they have been removed from a body of water, in order that the accumulation of rust on the hooks will be minimized.
A still further object is to provide a tackle box that is not vulnerable to having its contents scattered in different directions--if and when the tackle box is tilted or even accidentally turned over during handling or when fishing.
These and other objects will be apparent from a reading of the specification and the accompanying drawings.